Picture Credit: BCCI/IPL
When any cricketer walks out to the field with a bat in hand, their first instinct is to get off the mark without giving away the wicket to the opposition. But sometimes, even the best of batters in world cricket succumb to demands of putting together big runs for their team and get out without troubling the scorers.
There are nine different ways that a batter can get out with a duck registered to their name. The scorers, instead of putting it on the board as “0”, use the image of a duck to symbolise that the batter has gotten dismissed for zero. Let’s check out the types of ducks here:
Golden Duck - The Golden Duck occurs most regularly in cricket as a batter gets out for naught on the first ball of their batting innings.
Silver Duck - When a batter is dismissed on the second ball of their batting innings, it is called the Silver Duck.
Bronze Duck - If a batter is removed from the crease on the third ball of their batting innings, it is referred to as the Bronze Duck.
Diamond Duck - The most unfortunate duck of them all in cricket is the Diamond Duck, when a batter doesn’t trouble the scorers via a run out, timed out, or obstructing the field of play, while not facing a legal delivery from the bowlers.
Royal Duck - The Royal Duck happens when an opening batter gets out on the first ball of an innings. Many believe it is associated with the Ashes, when an opening batter from either England or Australia gets out on the first ball during the Test series.
Laughing Duck - When the team's batting innings ends with a dismissal of a batter for no runs, it is referred to as the Laughing Duck.
Pair - In Test cricket, when a batter heads back to the pavilion twice in two innings without troubling the scorers, it is called a Pair.
King Pair - The King Pair happens when a batter gets out twice in a Test match for no score, each time on the first legal delivery from the bowlers.
Batting Hattrick - In all estimations, the rarest of all ducks in the batting hattrick, when a batter is sent packing for no score thrice in three balls in consecutive Test innings.
